Foreigners entering Vietnam must obtain the most important travel document called visa if their countries are not included in the list of Vietnam visa exempt countries or eligible nations for electronic visas. Vietnam visa is issued by Vietnamese Embassy or Consulates, travel agencies.

August 28, 2017 / / —

Besides the standard visa issued at the Embassy, two most presently convenient visa types are visa online (visa on arrival) or e-visa. These two new types of visa are the most innovative visa policies for applying and granting Vietnam visas. Each visa has its own requirements as well as procedures. Before deciding to choose the visa type, travelers should cautiously check details of each visa type in advance to determine the most suitable one for their travel needs.

Visitors having diplomatic of legal passport of Vietnam visa exempt countries will not need a Vietnam visa. These travelers will be issued a one month or three months, single or multiple entry visas depending on their nationalities. Residents of China, Cuba and North Korea owning passports for public affairs or official passports endorsed for public relations do not require a visa for Vietnam. Travelers who are not exempted from visa requirements can visit Phu Quoc without a visa for a maximum of 30 days. Visitors have to come to Phu Quoc from a third country or international airports in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City where they can proceed to the domestic terminals.

If visitors want to extend their new staying duration permission in Vietnam, they have two choices to make and that are getting visa extension and visa renewal. Tourists are permitted to stay longer in Vietnam without re-entering if they exit Vietnam before their visa expired. So visitors have to apply for a new visa if they want to come back to this country after leaving and the extension fee is much cheaper than renewal fee. Extending Vietnam visa has to be completed before their visa expired. The processing time for extending visa takes seven working days at Vietnam Immigration Department.

Renewing Vietnam visa means that foreign travelers will be issued a new visa stamp or visa sticker on their passport with a new duration permission. Keep in mind that the maximum length of stay is 3 months, and the visa renewal fee is higher than the visa extension fee. Visa renewal is issued for visitors having Vietnam visa exemption, and having a current visa is not correspondent to their staying extending requirement and those who want to get multiple entry visa in 1 and 3 months.
Foreigners of any nationality could transit through Vietnam by air without visa for less than 24 hours. Remember that staying overnight in the transit lounge is allowed.

Vietnam government launched a new electronic visa system in early February 2017. This visa is valid for up to 30 days for citizens of 40 eligible countries. The processing time takes three working days and is processed online completely.

Travelers having a Vietnam visa approval letter granted and stamped in Hanoi, Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh city by the Vietnamese Immigration Department within the Ministry of Public Security or the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can get a Vietnam visa for a maximum stay of 1 or 3 months at airports in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang or Nha Trang.

Nationalities who possess an APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) containing "VNM" on the back of the card can enter visa-free for business trips for up to 60 days.

More information relating to Vietnam visa service can be found when clicking here.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has again targeted White House press credentials for CNN reporter Jim Acosta. After a federal judge ordered that Acosta's credentials be temporarily restored last week, the White House sent Acosta a letter saying it had made the "preliminary decision" to suspend his pass. The White House said Acosta would continue to hold his credentials while the 14-day judge's order was in effect. The White House argues Acosta did not follow "basic standards" when he scrapped with President Donald Trump at a news conference. The letter from Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Communications Director Bill...

LOS ANGELES — ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey, who created a deep bench of ethnic diversity in the network's shows and fired Roseanne Barr for a racist tweet, will be stepping down. Her decision announced Friday comes amid ABC corporate parent Walt Disney Co.'s pending acquisition of 21st Century Fox and the planned reorganization of Disney's television units. Dungey, who became the first African-American programming chief for a major broadcast network when she was named to the job in February 2016, will be replaced by Karey Burke, head of programming development at ABC sibling cable channel Freeform since 2014, the...

NEW YORK — Oscar-winning screenplay writer William Goldman has died. He was 87. Goldman won Academy Awards for the comic Western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and the political thriller "All the President's Men." He converted his novels "Marathon Man" and "The Princess Bride" into hit movies and coined a favorite Hollywood catchphrase, "Nobody knows anything," that summed up the mystery of what makes a movie work. In his time, he was among the highest paid writers in the business. Goldman's daughter Jenny says her father died early Friday in New York due to complications from colon cancer and...

MILAN — Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag's long-awaited, first-ever opera has made its world debut at the famed La Scala opera house, winning over Italian opera goers with eight minutes of applause. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was in the royal box for Thursday's premiere of "Fin de Partie," based on the play by Samuel Beckett. Orban's comment as he left the theater: "Astonishing." The 92-year-old Kurtag spent more than eight years writing the opera. La Scala General Manager Alexander Pereira has been waiting since his days at the Zurich Opera House and then the Salzburg Festival to stage it. Backstage,...

NEW YORK — Hey, remember Gary Hart? Ask most people, and if they're old enough to remember anything at all, it's that famous photo of the doomed candidate with a smiling Donna Rice in his lap, on perhaps the most unfortunately named yacht in American political history: "Monkey Business." What most people don't recall, or never even knew, is that the photo emerged two weeks after the 1987 scandal had ended in Hart's withdrawal from the Democratic race, his hugely promising political career destroyed over suspicions — never confirmed — that he'd had an affair with Rice. The fact that...